The Autumn Leaves of Multiple Sclerosis

We all experience the same weather on the same day, if we’re in the same place. But how we experience that shared experience can be quite different. It’s sort of like that quote, “Some people dance in the rain, others just get wet.”

I try to dance in the rain of MS, but I often fall down, so I “just get wet,” too, sometimes.

Each Tree Loses Its Leaves on Its Own Schedule

Oddly enough for the area we live in, we have a few large trees in our garden of varying species. We have two large sycamore maples in the back, along with an old apple tree that seems to give more fruit every year, despite its age.

There is an old ash tree in the front that the ESB (the state-owned Electricity Supply Board) unceremoniously hacks at every few years so that it doesn’t damage the power lines servicing our neighborhood. Also out front are a few Cordyline australis, or “cabbage palm” trees. “Palm trees” in Ireland is something visitors always comment upon.

Along the side wall, in the neighbor’s garden, there are firs and spruces that act as a wind break and offer a bit of privacy as well. In that hedge, there is also a much younger sycamore, which is on a much different shedding schedule than our two large ones.

Which brings me around to my analogy.

All of these trees lose their leaves at different times and at different rates when the season changes. A recent storm blew the last remaining foliage from the lot but, in general, it seems like I’m picking up dead leaves from the trees from early August until mid-November.

It’s sort of like how progressive MS has me constantly cleaning up as small bits of my former abilities are shaken from my life.

Raking the Leaves Is Like Cleaning Up After MS

Gone are the days — mostly — of storms in the form of MS exacerbations, which can litter life’s lawn overnight with piles of loss. Now it’s an almost constant raking, but only a few leaves at a time.

Like I said, it begins in early August when the (slightly) younger of the two big sycamore begins to drop leaves. Though the sky might still be clear and there still be warmth in the sun, I can tell when the season of faltering abilities has begun. And that they come at different times, with larger or smaller leaves, dry and easy to rake or wet and muddy and difficult, it’s just like cleaning up life when MS takes away a few things here and there in between major storms.

We rake our garden so that it’s tidy and safe. It also ensures that dead leaves are the first thing someone sees when they call to the house.

Sometimes I can do it myself, and sometimes my wife, Caryn, has to help. And I won’t say that I’m sad when the man who mows the grass comes and can take the lot with him in one go.

Oh, if only the mess that multiple sclerosis leaves behind could be mowed up so easily.

Planting New Abilities Keeps a Bit of Evergreen in Our Lives

But there is also a new addition we have made to our garden. Several years ago we planted a small, ornamental bay laurel in a disused corner. It’s now taller than the neighbor’s garage and, though it does drop leaves now and again, it’s evergreen, and has the added bonus of being a lovely flavor agent for our meals.

We will always lose some of the leaves of our ability to multiple sclerosis. Sometimes piles of them in storms, sometimes a few here and there.

As we clean them up and move on in the new normal of our lives, I have found that planting new abilities, which may never be affected by MS, helps not only to keep a bit of green through my MS winters, but it can also spice things up a little.

At least that’s what I try to think about when I look out the windows on a morning full of leaves which MS has knocked from my tree.

Wishing you and your family the best of health.

Cheers,

Trevis